


This Ravenous Tiger

by james



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Weres, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Not Even Kidding About The Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, Werecats, and fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:22:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7170863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geno has ideas about Sid.  Sid just sits there and lets him, because what else can you do.  And, secretly, he doesn't mind as much as he'd like you to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Ravenous Tiger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tsumego](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsumego/gifts).



Sid shut off the spray of water and grabbed a towel, and began rubbing as quickly and thoroughly as possible. When the first towel was completely damp, he dropped it and grabbed a second one and continued drying himself off. He knew the other guys in the showers were more than ready to tease him about it, but they also knew as well as Sid that he needed to be absolutely, perfectly, completely dry before he headed back out to the locker room.

Soon enough he was ready, wrapping a towel around his waist and ignoring the comments about just how long is that towel, Sid, to get around your ass? He'd heard it before; he was going to hear it for the rest of his life, and he knew that the jokes from his teammates were half-teasing and half-jealousy anyway. 

He wandered into the locker room and glanced around, seeing the rest of the team scattered about, talking and joking around after a good day's practise. Sid headed for his stall and sat down – and literally the second he did, Geno was up off the floor where he'd looked for all the world like he'd been sound asleep and completely unaware of the noise and activity around him.

Sighing, Sid just sat quietly as Geno climbed up behind him and began to rub against Sid's back. He had to brace himself, feet planted flat, otherwise he'd have been sprawled out on the floor as soon as Geno began to push against him.

"Seriously, again?" Tanger called out, loud enough for the entire room to hear. Not that they weren't watching already, in various states of amusement or confusion, depending on how long they'd been playing for the Pens. The season's brand-new rookies mostly looked concerned, glancing at one another like they weren't sure they should be seeing this. Sid just looked over at Tanger, letting his resignation show, because he did sort of agree that this didn't have to happen every single time Sid took a shower.

Flower walked over and watched for a moment, consideringly. "I still don't think Amur tigers even _have_ scent glands," he said, as Geno ignored them all and continued to rub his chin down Sid's arms. Sid could feel the hairs clinging to his skin even though he'd dried himself carefully – it was far worse to still be wet when Geno felt the need to do this, because not only would more hair stick, but Geno would complain loudly about water touching him and how dare Sid inflict this sort of disgusting horror on him.

Everyone took great glee in pointing out that Geno loved swimming and scuba diving, and Sid took great pains to let everyone know that Geno was capable of taking marathon showers at home. He'd timed them for awhile, and let Kuni post the times in the training room. Geno just said it was different in cat form, and made sad-eyes at Sid whenever he found a tiny patch of water still on Sid's skin when Geno wanted to scent-mark him.

Mostly Sid dried off so well because he didn't like cat hair stuck to his bare skin in places cat hair didn't need to be – unless he was switched to his own lynx form, then it hardly mattered. But he didn't switch forms at the rink. There was no need to ever switch unless he was home or on vacation. But Geno tended to prefer his cat-form and took to it whenever he could.

Jen had forbidden him from using it as an excuse to get out of press, saying she would be happy to leave him in front of the cameras in cat form and let everyone coo over how cute he was while he pretended not to speak English. As far as Sid knew, they were still at an impasse, because sometimes Geno didn't actually mind being cooed over in tiger form. Most of the time he insisted he was scary, not cute, and told Sid to talk to the reporters for him.

Right now Geno was neither cute nor scary. He was annoying and pushy, and Sid was going to find himself shoved onto the floor if Geno rubbed any more vigorously. "Aren't you done yet?" he asked, because honestly. Geno just rumbled at him, half-growl and half-purr, and on the other side Kuni wriggled his fingers towards Geno in a threat to scratch his ears.

Sid was pretty sure he should be done by now, but Geno was still happily rubbing away. "Seriously, G, come on. The entire fucking world knows I belong to you – anyone who doesn't know by now doesn't even know about hockey, so I think you're safe."

He felt Geno freeze, then a giant tiger head poked over Sid's shoulder. Geno blinked at him. Sid could practically hear him asking, _How does someone not know about hockey?_

Taking advantage of the break, Sid shoved his hand into Geno's face and pushed him back. Admittedly, he was hoping to get Geno shoved all the way off the bench and off Sid, but in this form Geno had leverage on him, so his head just went back a little. Then Geno leaned his entire body forward, knocking them both off the bench. Geno landed fully on top of Sid, and Sid wished, not for the first time, that his mate was ticklish.

Not that tickling someone with tiger claws was ever a good idea, but it'd be nice to be able to threaten.

"Is this--?" Sid heard Murray, from across the room.

"Perfectly normal? Unfortunately," Flower told him. "G has the biggest form, so we have to all gang up on him to push him around."

Sid could feel as well as hear the extremely smug purr that rumbled out of Geno at that, as he settled himself on top of Sid like he had every intention of staying there, possibly forever.

"Could I at least put my shorts on?" Sid asked. Geno licked his face, no doubt saying _You're cute, but no._ At least that was the gist of what Sid got from the way Geno didn't make any move to let Sid get up.

"Uh... would my form help?" Murray was asking, and Sid craned his neck. Murray hadn't been here long, a handful of weeks for playoffs when second forms were the last thing on anybody's mind. It wasn't something normally shared except among family or close friends – good teammates were a mesh of both of those things, but the season was so new that nobody had really had a good opportunity to ask him, or any of the newcomers. 

Geno, of course, didn't care who knew because as he said, _Siberian Tigers best, Sid. Everyone get to see!_ The sentiment seemed to be universal among Amur tigers, as Ovechkin was much the same way, shamelessly wandering around in his tiger form to the amused-resignation of his team, his team's PR department, and Nicklas.

Sid had had exactly one conversation with Bäckström about being scent-marked in semi-public and he would be grateful to never, ever have another conversation like it ever again, drunk or sober. It had helped a bit that Bäckström had slurred in a mix of English and Swedish, so Sid didn't _really_ know what he'd meant about Ovechkin's tongue. Or so he kept telling himself.

Flower was looking nonchalantly at Murray as he asked, "You're bigger than G's tiger?"

Murray shrugged, and he stood up, slipping out of his shorts.

A moment later, there was an objectively small, gangly-legged moose standing in their locker room. Clearly not fully grown, as his shoulder was only level with Flower's own. Sid glanced up at the ceiling and wondered if they'd have to renovate in the next year, after Murray hit his last growth-spurt.

In his position on top of Sid, Geno growled cautiously. Murray lowered his head, and Sid could feel Geno tense up, scooting the tiniest bit backwards. Sid – and everyone else – could see that he was ready to run, not engage.

Well, who wouldn't, Sid wondered. Murray might be all leg, but even if all he did was trip and fall on you, you'd be sorry. In fact, Sid knew weremoose didn't tend to attack; they were much more likely to just stand there and fail to be fazed by whatever you tried to do to them. It didn't surprise him at all that a weremoose would become a goalie, and it explained a lot about Murray's calm demeanor.

"I knew I liked you," Tanger said, clapping Murray on the back. 

Sid reached up and petted Geno along his back. "I think your territory is safe," he said. "But maybe you can let me get dressed, so we can go home."

Geno seemed to think it over for a moment, then he licked Sid again, huge tongue rasping down the entire side of Sid's face, then he stood up and moved to one side. He laid down, and Murray came over, sniffing at him carefully in the way of all weres who wanted to get acquainted. Geno sniffed back at him, and Sid really hoped they didn't decide to become friends and have wrestling bouts in the middle of the locker room.

He'd seen the pictures after Ovechkin and Latta had virtually destroyed their team's bus. Deadspin (and the rest of hockey media) had had a field day with photos of a tiger and a bear wrestling – with paper crowns on their heads, which Sid still didn't understand. Instead of dwelling on it, he quickly got dressed so he could take Geno home and keep him out of trouble for at least the remainder of the day.

"Hey, Sid, we still having a cookout at your place tonight?" Kuni asked. 

Sid nodded, even as he could hear Flower and Tanger excitedly telling the rookies that Sid's yard was big enough and private enough for everyone to change forms and have a good time. He sighed. At least Deadspin wasn't likely to get ahold of any pictures. Sid hoped.


End file.
